It’s not so much porn–by calling it that, I’m giving it a bad name. I wanted to create a print magazine, consisting of poetry, fiction, essays, and artwork about sex, from a feminine perspective. Very tastefully done, sensual and erotic rather than lewd. No beaver shots.
I realized that without a lot of capital and connections, I would neither have the money to make the magazine, or any contributors of a decent enough caliber. So there went that dream.
Ah, well. It would have been cool, but that’s neither here nor there.
I wanted to get my PH.D in archaeology. I had exactly one semester of grad school and all hell broke loose. I didn’t get the funding that I thought that I was going to get and the school I was in was way too expensive for me to foot the bill. At least I know enough people that I can go and dig for a couple of weeks in the summer if I want to.
Anthracite: you aren’t unloveable, you just haven’t loved people who can return it yet. Give love wisely but wholeheartedly and it’ll come back to you tenfold.
Alpine: oh, yes, I dreamed of beining a marine biologist. Like you, I’m not cut out for it, but you give me hope for experiencing some of the magic anyway.
Mostly, I’m like others here. Time and reality honed my dreams. I’m a competent artist and writer…but no more. I’d dreamed of combining my passions with practicality. In hard truth, my gifts wouldn’t support my dreams, so I chose to keep those passions separate and vital. I was insanely lucky enough to find a “means of living” that still fulfills a passion, just not in the way I’d envisioned.
FWIW, same reason I refused to join swim teams and water ballet in school, even though I swim like a fish. (And got clobbered as a “non-team” freak for it.) Turning joy into work was a price I wouldn’t pay. Explains a lot, huh?
But the dreams aren’t dead. In fact, they’re stubbornly alive. They just won’t be expressed in forms I originally envisioned.
Soulsling, you’re right, of course. These days, I’m trying to balance my need for a job that feeds my soul as well as my mouth and to figure out which direction I really want to take that residual dream (write the novel? Paint the portrait? What?)
BratMan - as any writer will tell you, if you want to write badly enough, you make the time. Even if it’s just 15 minutes hunched over a notebook while the kids eat their breakfast cereal.
Missy2U - why is it too late? Have your limbs and tongue fallen off your body? There’s no rule that says you can’t start a business in your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s or later.
Drain Bead - not porn, erotica. You may not be able to do a glossy magazine just yet, but . . . what about a website? Stoidela’s doing her http://www.retroraunch.com, which I must say is a wingding of a site. Perhaps you could start there and build up.
My other dream, to be a famous architect, to have the world interact with my imagination is not dead yet. Reality does have a way of getting in the way of dreams.
For the last few years one of my dreams has been to be a photographer. No Ansel Adams or anything, just one that is both happy and confident with their work.
This last Thursday while in the darkroom, my frustration was kicking dust in my face and I thought I’d set my sites for something I could never achieve.
But thanks to the co-operation of my brother, the fire burns again.
Until I was eleven, I wanted to be an astronaut. I lived, breathed, and ate up anything having to do with piloting, space, NASA, etc. I was going to join the air force, become a top-rank pilot, and then go on a mission to mars.
Picture this:
Eye Doctor: So Sarah, what do you want to be when you grow up? (as he examines my eyes).
Sarah: An astronaut or a pilot.
Eye Doctor: oh well, looks like that won’t happen. You have lousy vision and you need to be 20/20 to be a pilot!
Ka-THUNK. The dream died.
Now I was to be a writer and a lawyer. Well, I am a writer, I am working on a book right now (150 pages and counting!). But I would love to be published, other than in the campus lit mag. I want to be in the Oprah Book Club! JK. As a lawyer, I dream of helping people who are unable to do so themselves.
I wanted to be a fighter pilot. I still have a poster of a B-2 stealth on my wall. But I didn’t have 20/20 vision, my mom said I didn’t want to go into the air force, and my dad said girls couldn’t do air combat. Something about hand-eye coordination or staying calm in dangerous situations. ::sigh::
But most of all, I wanted to be a Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics. From age 13 to 15 I dreamed about my career-to-be. But then I suddenly realized my math skills weren’t going to develop fast enough.
Oh well. Molecular biology is good too, I guess.
When I was in 6th grade, my school got a PDP-8 desktop computer. I thought this was the greatest thing since sliced bread and decided on the spot I wanted to be a computer programmer.
Although I dropped out of both high school and college, I managed to work my way up through the industry. Currently, I have been an senior programmer (devloper) for 15 years. I am on the verge of possibly making a lasting contribution to computer science.
I always wanted to have adventures. I backpacked through Europe when I was 19. I joined a commune. I picked up my two kids and moved to Denver with no job, no place to live, and found my way here. I have met a wide variety of fascinating and weird people.
Later in life I developed an interest in music. Although I will never be able to be a professional, I learned to play (by dint of enormous effort) a short Bach invention and a couple of other pieces.
My latest dream is to possibly become either a paramedic or a professional writer; perhaps both. To further the second dream, I am practicing here.
I have had a very fortunate life. I’m hoping the next 35 years will be last.
I’ve always had more dreams than I’ve known what to do with. Since high school, though, being a doctor has been the big one–and if I can just survive two more years, I’ll make it. (The worst is behind me.) The best part is that I still feel that way–I can’t tell you how many people in my class have found medicine not to be the dream they expected, or have realized that it was never their dream to begin with.
Like a lot of people here, I also have that dream of seeing my name on the cover of a book, and that will hopefully become reality once life settles down a bit.
I do love to entertain–I play music, do close-up magic, and act a little bit–but I don’t think I would want to do any of them for a living. I do those things for fun, and I hate when they become obligations. I may fantasize about selling out Rupp Arena, or showing up on “World’s Greatest Magic LVIII”, but I think I enjoy those dreams more than I would the reality.
It’s easy to say make time, but it’s a lot more difficult to do while working full time and going to school full time AND trying to keep the fiance and her son happy. The fiance and I have since split up and I’ve now got my college degree, so all I have to take my time is my job and my Playstation.
So you may be pleased to know (or you may not give a shit) that I’ve sat down and come up with 4 different ideas to work on. I’m going to work on 2 or 3 at the same time so if I get writer’s block on one story, I can skip to another. That way I can be constantly productive and not frustrate myself by getting stuck on one scene. The only thing left to do is outline them from start to finish and decide which will be novels and which are best for screenplay.
One more dream of mine that really did die, though.
I always wanted to play 2nd Base for the Cardinals. I dreamt of being in Tommy Herr’s place while Ozzie Smith made a great play and tossed me the ball so I can hurl it to Jack Clark at 1st for the double play. I played 2nd base through little league and high school ball.
Although I was great defensively - it was the only reason Coach let me play everyday, I once made an unassisted triple play - I was weak at the plate, my best batting average was .265 my senior year. At batting practice, the coach used to stand me in there and dare me not to swing the bat. (For someone who batted so poorly, I suffered from overconfidence at the plate, and almost every ball that came by I thought, “Oh yeah, I can hit it.”)
So basically that dream died when I realized if I’m struggling to bat over .250 in high school, I stand little chance in college and no chance in the big leagues.
Maybe when my books become bestsellers and my screenplays sell for $1,000,000 a piece I can just buy the Cardinals to make up for it.
My dream was silly, I suppose. I always wanted to train seeing-eye dogs. I loved dogs, but didn’t want to train them for security work. I felt training guide dogs would be a positive thing. I never went for it.
My dream was to be a CON MAN, but how to become one?
There aren’t any ones I know that need an apprentice! Or can I just learn myself?
My dream is to pull a really big con-like selling the Brooklyn Bridge…or,I saw a story in the Wall Street Journal-a man claiming to be a US Air Force colonel-fleeced dozens of companies out of $55 million dollars worth of military equipment-wow-if I could do that!
egkelly: See the movies The Sting and Grifters for some good pointers on con artistry. There are some good fiction books in that genre as well, but I can’t recall any titles off the top of my head.
Since you claim to have an MBA, just go into marketing. That’s about the same thing.
